SEO and Social Media
Optimisation and social media all buzz words within the online marketing media. Social networking has been in the news markedly of late. Some have even been lead to remark do people socialise in reality any more or is it all done online? You Tube, Facebook, Del-icio.us, Twitter, My Space the list goes on. All of these give you a ‘presence’ in the virtual world. More and more people are using the social media route to optimize and advertise their presence through the internet. For many, more time is spent online rather than in the reality of the real time world.
Social Media Considerations
Most bloggers use social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com, StumbleUpon and Del-icio.us. These sites work by providing feedback on submitted articles via a judging and voting system. A well received article can ring a multitude of visitors to your site. Beware of falling into the trap of becoming ratings obsessed; make sure you do not detract from your original goal of writing for your subject specific readership.
When considering your Search Engine Optimisation strategies it is best to choose one maybe two of the social media sites. Using a multitude will give you a never ending task within the promotion stakes and this is where you will fall down with your original goal - that of writing. All will help create further web presence and can bring traffic to your site, each work in a slightly different way. StumbleUpon can give you a good influx of traffic from just a few votes; Digg however needs far more votes to help lift your article to the front page, once there your stats will show a huge traffic peak or spike. Social media sites can help boost your exposure throughout the web which will help considerably with your optimisation objectives. The more traffic the search bots encounter visiting your site the higher up the rankings you will go. Here I must emphasise once again the need not to get enthralled by the obsession for traffic and lose sight of your initial goal to write. Although all the social media or community sites mentioned in this article will help send initial traffic to your site if the content the readers find there is not well written and worth reading the traffic will be short lived, when aiming to build the popularity of your work not only do you want those tell tale spike sin your stats leagues you also want a loyal audience that read your work because they enjoy it.
Here is where social networking sites come into their own. By building up a large network of likeminded people you have a good start to a ‘reader list’ you know these people enjoy similar ideologies as yourself why else would they be within your network or circle – here is where my deals of networking may change to those of some others. In building my network in LinkedIn I have looked to link with other likeminded individuals that share similar interests and goals in this way we can help each other within our networks. I have not actively searched for a massive list my network has grown through connection with other within my professional arena be it through similar career goals or industry experience or those whose expertise I value and I would like to learn from. By simply building an enormous list for list sake’ you run the risk of putting the worrying thought of spam into people’s minds. Large communities or networkers can still easily be built but you need to constantly keep your reasons for building uppermost in your mind.
Key Points for Consideration
When writing content or articles and considering search engine optimisation alongside social media exposure the key points to keep in mind are:
· What is your aim with the piece?
· Who is your target audience?
· Which keywords you are aiming to optimise?
· Have you included well placed links throughout your article to include internal and external links?
· Do your paragraphs elicit narrative greed, grabbing the audience with short, punchy remarks?
· Is your content styled to aid ease of reading? This could include:
o Bulleted points
o Clearly defined subheadings (search engines appreciate this to help with indexing as well as any reader being able to grasp the articles intention from an initial skim reading)
o Key points and interesting quotes
· Do you emulate the feeling of community through your prose?
· Is your article informative or educational?
· Does your title give the relevant impression for those following through RSS feeds?
Further Social Networking tips
For all forms of networking a useful reference is “Brilliant Networking” by Steven D’Souza ISBN 978-0-3-71484-2 easily available through Amazon
Social Media Revolution
Do you Digg or Tweet or do you prefer to StumbleUpon your web content?
Key topics to include
· Attention grabbing headlines good for creating narrative greed within your audience also loved by the search engines for optimisation.
· Keep paragraphs short and punchy this helps your reader to skim through to find their preferred topics
· Use of bullet points images and subheadings also help with the skimming process
· Include interesting quotes and key points
· Keep your topics popular, something your readers will want to discuss and revisit on a regular basis. This is key to help build up a steady comment flow within your articles.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon provides a downloadable toolbar that allows you to rate each website that you browse with the chance to leave a review if you so wish. With just a few votes from your friends you can generate a steady flow of traffic to your site through exposure to StumbleUpon.
Digg
Digg allows you to submit an article you may find of interest, yes you can promote your own work comments and votes are welcomed from other visitors to the site. This is another way to populate your blog articles with comments, feedback and followers. “If you build it they will come” but only if ‘they’ know it is there! The key with Dig is to have a large friendship base that can vote your articles into high ranking positions to ensure they receive a large amount of interest. With little or no circle of friends within the Digg community there is little chance of great exposure on this site.
Through short, sharp phrases you can send a steady stream of traffic to your work simply by regular posting on Twitter. There are arrays of applications that help to promote followers to your profile that will give a greater distribution to your article when posting your new work with the complimentary hyperlink to send readers to the specific piece
The article SEO and Social Media gives an initial breakdown of the various uses of social media when optimising your work. This topic is evolving continuously and will be revisited on a regular basis.
DesktopLightning - Click Here For Free Traffic